Quality and Safety Assessments of 5G-Powered Telerobotic Ultrasound System for Multi-Organ Screening: A Prospective Pilot Study.

PURPOSE: This study aims to assess the ability of a 5G-based telerobotic system to generate required images of diagnostic quality in multi-organ US examinations.

MATERIALS AND

METHODS

This prospective study involved participants in Shenzhen and Tibet, which are 106 and 4000 km, respectively, from the tele-radiologist's hospital. Participants underwent telerobotic US examinations from September 2020 to March 2021. A total of 127 participants were enrolled. The required image quality was evaluated by the required image adequacy, image quality, the observer reliability and the consistency of the conventional US. The safety assessments were assessed by complications and questionnaires.

RESULTS

A total of 1790/2032 (88.1%) required images were considered adequate, and 167/2032 (8.2%) were considered adequate with some reservations. The mean image quality score was 2.83 ± 0.47 on a three-point Likert scale and did not differ between the districts or sexes. Telerobotic US detected 15 out of 18 abnormalities (83.3%) in 10 patients who underwent both telerobotic US and conventional US. There was good consistency between the two methods (k = 0.7-1.0). Furthermore, nearly 86.0% of patients accepted and would be willing to undergo another telerobotic US examination in the future. Teleradiologists accepted almost all US examinations as adequate for diagnosis and were satisfied with them.

CONCLUSIONS

The 5G-based telerobotic US(MGIUS-R3) can acquire required images with adequacy and quality in multiple organ examination procedures, with high safety and customer satisfaction in this limited group of patients. Further studies with larger samples and more centres are needed to validate this potential new technology.